Finally Made it to Chimney Rock!

Friday morning, we had a delicious breakfast at the Corner Kitchen. It is a restored home from the late 1800s converted to a restaurant.

It was exceptionally delicious except we didn't understand that smoked salmon was RAW! Eric and I both ordered it with our meal. I did eat some, but didn't really care for the texture. The flavor was good though.

The local jam that we had on our bagels was delicious! We bought some to take home with us.

 Then we headed through the beautiful North Carolina mountains to Chimney Rock. It was about a 45 minute drive.

First glimpse of Chimney Rock

When Eric and I were dating, his family lived near Chimney Rock in North Carolina. He told me about it and about how "Last of the Mohicans" was filmed here. I've always wanted to visit and hike it. I was so excited that this was part of my birthday weekend! :) It was beautiful. We did a ton of hiking! We first hiked to the Hickory Nut Falls, then Devils Head, then Chimney Rock, and the highest point is Exclamation Point! A lot of the hiking is stairs going straight up. I didn't know if I was going to make it to Exclamation Point. It was so many stairs after we'd already climbed SO many stairs, but it was amazing.

Beautiful winding river

I loved the view of this river

Part of Chimney Rock

Whoever thinks 2280 isn't a tough hike, didn't start near 0. This was really high.

Looking at Chimney Rock from Devils Head

I made it! And I was SO happy!!

Top of the World

View from Exclamation Point

North Carolina is truly a beautiful place! Hiking with my sweetheart was so fun and refreshing. I loved driving through these beautiful green covered mountains too.

Back at home, everyone was doing well. Jesikah sent us these pictures:

Jesikah managed to get Jarem to soccer practice with no problem even with a lot of roads closed near our house and construction going on.

Micah is playing in the sand during soccer practice

Selfie while waiting for Jarem's practice to end.